Last weekend I realized that I bought way too many carrots and that I had an overload of these orange goodies. And in my cookbook there aren’t a lot of recipes with carrots, and especially not vegan ones. So I started searching the web, and for the very first time, I wasn’t inspired at all! So I looked for some inspiration in my area.
Luckily, a friend of mine already made an amazing spread in the past with carrots, and it’s really amazing if you’d like to try something else on your sandwich. Or you can even use it in a salad.
And not just that, but I also found out that you can use it in a dessert! Oh, and now I’m not talking about a carrot cake, there are way too many recipes of those already ;).
And then finally, someone in my area told me about making your own home-made cough syrup with carrots.
Let’s begin!
Vegan Carrot Spread
When I started my first years as a vegetarian, there wasn’t that much to put on your sandwich. And in Belgium we’ve got a big bread culture, meaning that we would eat sandwiches twice a day. In those days my only option was cheese, cheese, and cheese… Which got a bit boring, so I tried a couple of things out, but they were never that amazing.
Up until a friend of mine recently talked to me about her vegan carrot spread. And oh, my, god, it was to die for! Luckily she gave me her recipe and I tweaked it a bit to my likings. It’s filled with veggies, but not compromising the taste at all! I do have to admit that it’s a bit of work, but if you make enough of it, you can portion it and put it in the freezer.
Ingredients
- 1 kg/ 2 pounds of carrots - 2 red peppers - Tabasco (flavor to your own liking) - 1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce - 1 Tablespoon Mustard - 4 gherkins - Capers
Preparation
1. Cut the carrots and peppers into small pieces and let them boil in water until they’re completely soft. After they are completely cooked, put them into a sieve to drain them from excessive water. Let the mixture cool down, otherwise, you’ll get more of a dip than a spread.
2. Blend the carrot and peppers with the mustard, gherkins and soy sauce. If it looks a bit dry, you can add just a little bit of olive oil.
3. Have a taste and see if you need to add more salt, you can add salt or decide to add some more soy sauce if the mixture looks a bit dry.
4. Add the capers on top or mix them into the mixture.
And that’s it for your home-made vegan carrot spread! It do have to add here that you really have to look on the bottle of soy sauce that you are going to buy if they didn’t add fish sauce. A lot of soy sauce does have some fish in it, so if you’d like to be completely vegan, be aware of this!
Vegan Carrot Pudding
The next dish is based on an Indian dish called Gajar Ka Halwa. Traditionally this dish isn’t vegan, but I had to give it a try and make it my own. Which is also why I can’t call it Gajar Ka Halwa as it doesn’t have the ingredients for this traditional dish. However, it was a great source of inspiration and it’s actually great to make for your kids. There is not a lot of added sugar in the dish, and a lot of vitamins!
Ingredients
- 500 grams / 1 pound of carrots - 360 ml / 1, 1/2 cup of vegan milk (I used non-sugared rice milk) - A handful of walnuts - 1 tablespoon Honey - 6 tablespoons of sugar (yes, that little sugar is in the dish) - 1/2 teaspoon of cardemom (you can use more or less if you'd like) - 2 tablespoons of chia seeds (optional) - 1 tablespoon of vegetable-based butter (unsalted)
Preparation
1. Crush the walnuts into little pieces and place them in honey. Roast them in a skillet until they are more or less caramelized. Put it aside too cool.
2. Grate the carrots (without peel).
3. Boil the milk in a pot and put your grated carrots in.
4. Let it simmer on a medium-high fiver until the milk completely evaporates.
5. Add the sugar, you’ll see that there are a lot of juices being released again. Simultaneously add the butter and keep on stirring. Add the cardamom.
6. The moment this starts to evaporate as well, turn of the fire and add the chia seeds (if you opted them in.
7. Add the chunks of walnut and stir well.
8. Divide them into jars and let them cool down to serve.
The recipe itself isn’t that hard to make, but you really have to be constantly present as you wouldn’t want the milk to get burnt. Because that will mean that you have to start over again. It’s quite a heavy dish itself so be sure that you’re not using bowls that are too big. Your kids won’t mind, but the goal was to create a healthier dessert ;).
Natural Cough-Syrup Made Out Of Carrots
The last recipe I’ve got for you is a real easy home-made cough syrup. But first a little disclaimer. I’m not a doctor, if you have a condition that needs to be looked at, I suggest you visit your physician for medical advice. And that’s it, job done. Anyway, this easy syrup is great for when you have a cough, it’s been used for ages and it stills apply up until this day. And it only needs two ingredients!
Ingredients
- 1 carrot - 4 tablespoons of sugar
Preparation
1. Peel the carrot
2. Cut the carrot into thin slice
3. Put them in a small container and add the sugar
4. Toss them around
5. Let them sit for 4 hours
And that’s all you need to make your own cough syrup! After four hours you’ll see that the carrots have released some juice, which you sip on.
The reason why this works is because carrots are rich in vitamin A, C and K. Research has shown that vitamin A plays a big role when you are having an infection (like a throat infection). Vitamin A also regulated Then you have vitamin C, which is great to build your immune system. And vitamin K regulates blood clotting. Making sure that you don’t bleed too much when you cut yourself (which you hopefully won’t do when creating this dish).
So for your cough syrup you’ll probably need vitamin A and C, but I had to write something about vitamin K as well as I did mention it before ;).
That’s it for now, let me know in the comment section below if you’ve tried of one these recipes!
And for now,
Nama-stay wonderful!
